Films on Friday - December 4, 2009

PAUL Newman, Mr T and a soppy imperial warlord in the movie guide that spent yesterday at Harry Hill's TV Burp.

No, Tiger, get off, we're trying to write the film guide, we'll give you a kiss later.

Hullo and welcome to Films on Friday, which has just had delivery of its Christmas sets. The snow is falling, sleigh bells are jingling and Arnold Schwarzenegger is running around trying to kill Sinbad. With just 20 Chopin days until Christmas, we reach #41 in our Top 100 Liszt, with nary a mention of Beethoven. But Bach to what I was saying, if I can just get a Handel on it: after last week's faintly abysmal guide, we're back with, if not a bang, then a touch more than a whimper. Our regular Films on TV guide includes Hayley Mills as the "glad girl", Paul Newman sucking eggs and Katie Holmes, who must be pining for the days when the most eccentric thing her partner did was dress up as a bat.

TV Burp was great, incidentally - it was the review of the year, screening on Boxing Day.

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Films on TV - your guide to the week ahead

Nov 5 to 11

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5

First up this week is one of the best I've seen this year, an enchanting family film based on an enduringly popular novel: Pollyanna (1960, ITV1, 11am). The last Disney production overseen by Walt, it takes numerous liberties with the source – and even makes up an Abraham Lincoln quote to give Pollyanna's musings some gravitas – but it's utterly charming. The "glad girl" of the title (Hayley Mills) moves in with her aunt, uptight town matriarch Jane Wyman, and her boundless optimism begins to work its magic on Wyman, hypochondriac Agnes Moorhead, embittered loner Adolphe Menjou and intolerant, weak-minded priest Karl Malden. Disney called off the search for his Pollyanna after Walt's wife saw Mills in Tiger Bay, while her father (celebrated British screen star Johnny) famously sparked her into life with on-set coaching ("You are like a great big white cabbage! Yes, really boring. Go on, pull your finger out"). Her natural performance, and pinpoint characterisations from the on-form veterans, spark many lovely vignettes in this episodic, excellent movie. Lovely cinematography too. (5/5)

Peter Pan (2003, ITV1, 1.35pm) is a live action take on the J.M. Barrie story, devoid of appeal, despite some passable production design, and boasting the kind of Pan it would be a real privilege to punch in the face. Rachel Hurd-Wood makes an appealing Wendy, but that's yer lot. I'd really like to see the Betty Bronson version. And the Charles Bronson version, but that doesn't exist. (1/5)

May the tolerance for mawkish sentimentality be with you. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983, ITV1, 3.50pm) was where it started to go wrong, as Luke Skywalker and his ragtag band of allies struck back against the dark side, and George Lucas waged war on the agreeable sense of darkness that had permeated the previous instalments. There's plenty that's good, like an emotionally-charged lightsaber duel that's among the highlights of the series, the Sarlacc set-piece and the gripping hoverbike chase, but lots that's indifferent or just plain poor, including the wrongheaded Ewok sequences, in which a bunch of furry critters kidnap camp robot C-3P0 and hail him as a deity. There's not much chance of anyone doing the same with Lucas after this entry, with its clammy emotional resolutions, or given the series' subsequent descent into mindnumbing tedium. Hamill, a somewhat underrated actor, has a great introduction here and gives a decent performance. (3/5)

*SOME SPOILERS*

Paul Newman was about to enter what I like term the "twinkly-eyed smugness" phase of his career when he made Cool Hand Luke (1967, Five, 4.55pm), offering a hybrid of the brooding, emotionally complex characters he'd played to date and the smirking borderline-irritants he'd specialise in for much of the next decade. He's magnificent here, incidentally, firing up the only anti-establishment classic that features a man eating 50 eggs. Sent to a chain gang for a parking violation, Newman's hero refuses to be caged, becoming a serial escapist and ending up cornered. It's funny and offbeat, but with an underlying sense of dread and suspense and a gem of a fatalistic ending. George Kennedy won a somewhat ill-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Newman's buddy after hiring a press agent to co-ordinate his campaign. He was slightly more successful than Chill Wills' publicity man... (5/5)

Jackie Brown (1999, C4, 1.20am SUN) was the film in which Quentin Tarantino "grew up", which you might have noticed didn't last very long. An adaptation of Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch, its labyrinthine plot takes in an air hostess-come-smuggler (Pam Grier), a lovelorn bondsman (Robert Forster), and a bad-tempered gun runner (Samuel L. Jackson) and his former cellmate (Robert De Niro). Despite the promising subject matter and big-name cast, it never really catches fire, with an uninvolving plot, unengrossing characters and dialogue that oscillates between banality and self-parody. Tarantino's use of music is typically astute and both Forster and Grier do their best work in a while, but this is unworthy of the major re-appraisal it's enjoyed over recent years. (2/5)

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6

Contrary to popular opinion, Batman Begins (2005, ITV1, 8.30pm) – and not The Dark Knight – is Christopher Nolan's bat classic. It's a complex, fascinating take on the legend, breathing new life into DC Comics' masked superhero by offering two parts introspection and myth-making to each dose of frenetic action. Christian Bale is ideally cast as millionaire Bruce Wayne, who leaves the crime-ridden Gotham City to travel the world, and returns a vigilante – jeopardising his burgeoning relationship with attorney Katie Holmes. The narrative is meticulous, sometimes surprising and always satisfying, with Nolan's emphasis on dreamlike imagery giving the movie a slow-burning power. Some of its class and intelligence is jettisoned in an explosion-heavy final third featuring a monster truck, but this is still one of the best superhero movies we've seen, and streets ahead of the messy if sporadically magnificent Dark Knight. (4/5)

Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992, Film4, 1pm) is a total misfire from John Carpenter, who helmed classics like Assault on Precinct 13, Escape From New York and The Thing, before wheeling his little director's chair off the rails. Chevy Chase, giving the impression of a man who could only function in the rarefied atmosphere of the 1980s, is our annoying yuppie 'hero', turned invisible by a lab accident and sought after by all manner of uninteresting competing parties. The scene where love interest Daryl Hannah paints a new face on Chase is memorably dreadful (for a more convincing variation, see James Whale's 1933 movie, The Invisible Man), but mostly this is just dull. Father Ted fans may want to look out for Bishop Brennan (Jim Norton), popping up in a rare film role, but it will take a will of iron to get all the way through this travesty. (1/5)

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7

Appointment in London (1952, Film4, 11am) was a late addition to the slew of WWII movies detailing the exploits of British flyers, but it's one of the best. Dirk Bogarde is terrific as a wing commander who's dedicated to the job, but may just be cracking up. This Home Front drama is moving, well-observed and has a wonderful feel for time and place. And while it may be a notch below THE flyer film par excellence, The Way to the Stars, fans of the genre won't want to miss it. Bogarde's later partner Anthony Forwood has a supporting role. (5/5)

High Anxiety (1977, F4, 5.20pm) is the usual rubbish from Mel Brooks, a succession of obvious jokes and unfunny Hitchcock pastiches. (1/5)

For TUE to FRI picks, please click on the link below right.TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8

Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962, Film4, 11am) is an acting showcase, with four magnificent performers at the top of their game. Each actor is given the time to delve deep into their role, each character laid bare across a day and a night. Ralph Richardson is the domineering former actor laid low by age and broken dreams, Kate Hepburn fittingly annoying, though tremendously sympathetic, as the former socialite belle ravaged by morphine addiction. Their youngest son is Dean Stockwell, at his most touching, vulnerable and good-looking - his doe-eyed juvenile sick with consumption as he's moulded in the image of his brother. And that brother? The great Jason Robards, Jr., nothing short of sensational as a cynical, tortured soul who destroys everything he touches, while pickling his liver. Like O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, it's repetitive, but that's the point: the characters are trapped in a cycle of despair. The movie, directed by Sidney Lumet, is like a montage, each monologue - stuffed full of revelations - adding another layer to the portrait. It's stagey, sure, but that isn't a criticism. If feels like you're in the midst of the action, watching one of the greatest plays ever staged. (5/5)

David Niven was one of a bunch of British stars released from Second World War service to shoot The Way Ahead (1944, Film4, 4.45pm), a propaganda movie that sees men from every walk of life clubbing together as they're forged into a fighting unit. It isn't as focused on the human cost of war as contemporaneous efforts like In Which We Serve and The Way to the Stars, meaning that it feels a little incomplete, but it's still persuasive, well-acted and steeped in realism, with a strikingly-photographed finale. (4/5)

Office Space (1999, Film4, 9pm) is consistently hilarious up until the final 20, when writer-director Mike Judge (the man behind Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill) runs out of things to say and manufactures a contrived, slightly stupid Hollywood ending. Ron Livingston plays an office nobody who undergoes an epiphany during a hypnotherapy session and decides to stop going to work. "So you're gonna quit?" girlfriend Jennifer Aniston asks. "Nuh-uh. Not really. Uh... I'm just gonna stop going." "What about bills," she asks. "You know, I've never really liked paying bills. I don't think I'm gonna do that, either." There's brilliant support from Gary Cole as the last word in slimy bosses, and a barrage of jokes that range from the observational to the satirical and the surreal. It's just a shame about the wrap-up. (4/5)

Dum. Dum dum dum. Dum dum duuuum. Dum. "Risin' up, back on my feet/Did my time, took my chances..." Rocky III (1982, Virgin 1, 9pm), from which that Survivor classic comes, is essentially just a series of homoerotic montages (beach, slo-mo jogging, very tight shorts), interspersed with footage of Mr T shouting, but it's entertaining. It's also – and here comes the sound of me throwing caution to the wind and chucking any remaining credibility in with it – the best of the series, lacking the emotional pretentiousness of the first two movies and replacing it with a subtlety of characterisation more usually associated with Tom and Jerry. I'd even go as far as to say it's knowingly ridiculous, except for the fact that Stallone has never shown any evidence of having a sense of humour to go along with his tremendous sense of self-importance. There is some appallingly hokey, if effectively manipulative stuff with Burgess Meredith (playing Rocky's coach), but apart from that this one doesn't try to make a big statement. It's just a cartoon. I forgot to mention the plot: Rocky loses his crown to brutish newcomer Clubber Lang (Mr T), and is trained for a rematch by boyfriend Apollo Creed. I played the Rocky computer game lots at uni, incidentally. It was good. (3/5), sort of.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9

Paths of Glory (1957, C4, 1.45pm) perhaps the finest anti-war movie ever made, with French World War One colonel Kirk Douglas trying to protect mutinous troops, as his superiors bay for blood. This was Stanley Kubrick's third feature and it's my favourite - a potent, brilliantly acted polemic that hums with anger and indignation. (5/5)

The Oscar-ogling Erin Brockovich (2000, Five, 9pm) feels hollow and pointless, despite the interesting subject matter. Julia Roberts never convinces as the title character – a gobby single mum who works to bring down a corporationy corporation that's polluting a town's water supply – largely because she isn't a very good actress. Albert Finney and Aaron Eckhart lead the supporting cast. They've been a lot better elsewhere. (2/5)

There's Something About Mary (1998, E4, 9pm) is tasteless, trashy and frequently downright offensive. It's usually customary to add "it's also absolutely hilarious", and stick it to those PC spoilsports who don't find physical disability funny. Well, I'm not going to. But I've included this largely sorry gross-out comedy in the round-up so as to say that it's not a complete loss. There are 10 glorious minutes at around the halfway point, in which Ben Stiller picks up a hitchhiker carrying a mysterious package and is subsequently arrested for murder. I laughed until I thought I might pass out. Then it goes back to being rubbish. (2/5)

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10

The African Queen (1951, C4, 1.25pm) is a spirited adventure that sees prim missionary Katharine Hepburn take a ride through Eastern Africa on hard-drinking skipper Humphrey Bogart's ailing steamboat. The script is good and there's some wonderful location footage from Jack Cardiff, but the chemistry between the stars is only middling, and the studio footage seems to have been incorporated by director John Huston's sloppy twin. There's a story - possibly apocryphal - that parakeets were introduced to Britain after a pair escaped from their crate having been shipped in for the shoot at Pinewood. (3/5)

Guest Wife (1945, Film4, 3.15pm) is a fun comedy starring Don Ameche and Claudette Colbert. It's not on the same level as their earlier Midnight (scripted by Billy Wilder), but still most enjoyable, as Colbert is hired by husband Dick Foran's conceited best friend to pose as his wife during an important weekend. The script's a little on the thin side, but the three leads - all gifted comics - make the most of it. The instantly recognisable Chester Clute (you'll know his face) has one of his best parts as a suspected voyeur. (3/5)

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11

Formula plotting, tired leads and one-note baddies: Lethal Weapon 3 (1992, ITV4, 10pm) really shouldn't work. It's no surprise then that it doesn't. Even given my weakness for buddy movies than no-one else seems to like (Stakeout, Running Scared, even Rush Hour a little bit – look, I'm sorry), this series is pretty thin, with stale characterisations, duff jokes and by-the-numbers action sequences. There's nothing terribly offensive about the film, and I've sat through all of them once, but when put up against the allure of an early night, the decision's a no-brainer. Much like the film, in fact. I think this is the one where the bomb goes off while Danny Glover is on the toilet. (2/5)

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Knew Me in the Biblical Sense (1999, Five, 9pm) is an OK sequel, which starts with a funny sketch set on the Jerry Springer Show, then whizzes downhill as it gets broader and cruder and introduces one of the lousiest comic creations of the past 200 years, Mike Myers' fat Scottish gentleman. Myers, of course, also takes the two main roles: toothy superspy Powers and criminal mastermind Dr Evil – who's a good deal funnier. It's very hit and miss, but perhaps worth seeing once for Evil's cloned sidekick. At least if you're 15. This is one movie that doesn't stand up to repeat viewings. At all. (2/5)

Thanks for reading. For #s 45 to 41 in our all-time Top 100, please click on the link below right.Top 100

45. A Room with a View (James Ivory, 1986) - There aren't many screen romances that can touch A Room With a View. Tourist Helena Bonham Carter falls for brooding Julian Sands amidst the violets of Florence, but even as she warms up, she struggles to cast aside the constraints of class and propriety, slipping instead into an engagement with priggish Daniel Day-Lewis. Bonham Carter is a fine actress - one of the best Britain has produced in the past 30 years or so. Here that familiar cut-glass accent forms a perfect counterpoint to the passions simmering beneath the surface. This is literate and lushly romantic, with Bonham Carter's effortless, glorious performance backed up by turns from Denholm Elliot, Maggie Smith, Day-Lewis and Judi Dench that are both weighty and hilarious. And the Tuscan exteriors seem to glow.

Favourite bit: Bonham Carter's climactic wail of "Well what did you all think?", her voice cracking.

See also: Howards End, another of Bonham Carter's films with Merchant Ivory. It's among her best: a tale of love, skulduggery and social manoeuvring that doubles as a portrait of a nation in flux. As with A Room with a View, it's based on an E.M. Forster novel, with a script by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. The cast includes Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave and Samuel West, and though Bonham Carter doesn't dominate the screen time, once more it's she who leaves an indelible impression. The Remains of the Day, also featuring Hopkins and Thompson, is almost as good.

44. Becket (Peter Glenville, 1964) - This is a gobsmacking two-hander that not only features one of cinema's finest acting tussles, pitting the mercurial Richard Burton against his drinking buddy Peter O'Toole, but also offers perhaps the most powerful affirmation of faith on film. Burton is Thomas Becket, a womanising, boozing rascal who carouses with King Henry II (O'Toole), then acts as his puppet, only to hear the call of a new master when he's appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. This is no stodgy history lesson, nor a period pageant, but an emotionally charged character drama that asks: would you die for what you believe in? Though there's also a subtext about the virilence of racism, the film never feels preachy, getting an injection of humour from John Gielgud's superb supporting performance (a dry run for his scene-stealing turn in Brideshead Revisited) and O'Toole's barracking of his family. The spectacular widescreen photography adds further spectacle and grandeur to a film that's emphatically cinematic, while Glenville's direction is mercifully free of the irritating, pointless tics and trickery of much mid-'60s cinema. Atheists and agnostics may find the film less powerful than I did, but should still be able to revel in the performances. The movie's only real mis-step is the presentation of the Pope, a cynical, satirical view of the upper echelons of the church that might be legitimate, but isn't very well realised and doesn't necessarily fit. But despite that, and the fact it's based on a discredited history book that mistakenly identified Becket as a Saxon (a key tenet of the story), this is a remarkable, must-see movie.

Favourite bit: Becket and Henry meet on the beach at the height of their dispute, their conversation loaded with nostalgia for the past and portents for the future.

See also: For other top acting battles, try Wayne vs Clift in Red River, Tracy vs Ryan in Bad Day at Black Rock or Robards vs Richardson vs Hepburn vs Stockwell in Long Day's Journey Into Night (see TUE).

43. Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935) - We've covered the history of the Fred and Ginger series already (see #71). Top Hat is its pinnacle, with the best musical numbers, the funniest jokes and the most outrageous production design - including a patently ridiculous Venice, a city that's apparently indoors and made out of plaster of Paris. Fred is an affable playboy who falls for model Ginger, but - due to reasons too silly to go into here - she's convinced he's married. And an adulterous wretch. That mistaken identity plot trundles on for most of the film and provides an extraordinary number of laughs. The music is sublime, with all five of the Irving Berlin numbers emerging as classics. 'No Strings' is a solo tap for Fred, danced in a hotel room. The famous 'Top Hat, White Tie and Tails' is a clever stage-set number. The epic 'Piccolino' recalls 'The Continental' (from The Gay Divorcee, Oscar winner for Best Song), while 'Isn't It a Lovely Day (To Be Caught in the Rain)' and 'Cheek to Cheek' are two of Fred and Ginger's greatest dances together. The connotations of the latter: love conquering all at a time of considerable adversity, have seen the Top Hat version used in films as varied as The Purple Rose of Cairo (our #80) and The English Patient. Despite tough competition from The Gay Divorcee and Swing Time, Top Hat is my favourite Fred and Ginger movie. It's also my favourite musical of all time - a glorious paean to love and song that also finds time to put a frozen steak on Edward Everett Horton's face. And it doesn't get much better than that.

Favourite bit: Cheek to Cheek - blissfully romantic, the troubled filming (ostrich feathers everywhere, quite a few strops) leaving no mark on the escapist wonderment of the finished article.

See also: For another side of Fred, try 1951's Royal Wedding. Whilst possessing an anemic storyline and a useless romantic lead in Winston Churchill's daughter Sarah, it has some of the most sensational dances in screen history, including a personal favourite, Fred and Jane Powell's explosive low-comedy routine to 'How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You, When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life' - the longest-titled song in the MGM canon.

*SOME SPOILERS - IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT, DO SO NOW, THEN COME BACK HERE. THE FIRST 10 MINUTES ARE STOMACH-CHURNING, BUT STICK WITH IT... IT GOES NICER*

42. One False Move (Carl Franklin, 1992) - This left-field thriller about a mysterious black woman drawn into a reign of terror and a sympathetic small-timer risking everything to save her, was released a year before The Crying Game. And like that film it possesses a superb, rug-tugging twist at the midway point. Cynda Williams is the girl, tagging along with psychopathic partner Billy Bob Thornton and his, well, psychopathic accomplice Michael Beach as they flee a botched drugs deal, the cops on their tail. I say "botched", they essentially suffocate a group of cokeheads and steal their drugs and money. The first 10 minutes are a really tough watch: vile, cruel, bloody and graphic. Then suddenly a sweet film emerges from the carnage, as we switch focus to the lawmen, including small-town police chief Dale "Hurricane" Dixon (Bill Paxton), preparing for the inevitable showdown. But while we know where we're headed, between now and then, it's never clear just what's going to happen. Excellent performances, particularly from Paxton and Williams (playing one of the best female characters of the '90s), atmospheric, suspenseful direction and a deft grasp of contemporary race relations years before Sayles' Lone Star and Sunshine State make it unmissable.

Favourite bit: Williams' revelatory monologue - a spellbinding bit of acting in a film that's full of surprises, and has the performances to make them matter.

See also: Some of the films that apparently influenced it: Electra Glide in Blue and The Thin Blue Line; or those that came afterwards, like No Country For Old Men.

41. Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone, 1984) is a gangster epic of rare power and eloquence. Robert De Niro is Noodles, an aged hoodlum who returns to the haunts of his youth on New York's Lower East Side – and recalls his life. It's a shocking, sumptuously photographed crime drama that ruminates on love, death and the impermanence of memory, whilst punctuating its story with bursts of graphic violence, including two sickening rape scenes. This one possesses the feverish, time-shifting delirium you'd expect from a film framed as an opium dream, with vivid imagery and one of the greatest musical scores ever composed (from Ennio Morricone). There's plenty of plot, and very good it is too, but it's the vignettes I enjoyed the most – each one allowed to play out in full. My favourite sees a boy buy a cream cake to trade for his virginity. As he's waiting outside, he eats just a little, then a little more, and then the lot. Then he shrugs to himself and walks off. (5/5)

Favourite bit: The opening forty minutes - in which De Niro's ageing nobody returns to his former patch - are unforgettable.

See also: The Godfather Part II, a similarly elegiac treatment of the gangster movie. The, well, brown chapters set in 1920s New York anticipate OUATIA's visual sense.

Top 100 Movies

The list so far:

#s 100 to 91: featuring His Girl Friday, Stand by Me and The Red Balloon

#s 90 to 86, including Five Easy Pieces, Ghost World and Confessions of Boston Blackie

#s 85 to 81, where you'll find The Edge of the World, Judge Priest and A Thousand Clowns

#s 80 to 76: including The Purple Rose of Cairo, Singin' in the Rain and Lawrence of Arabia

#s 75 to 71: boasting Le Samourai, Kiss Me Kate and Swing Time

#s 70 to 66: in which you can read about Naked, Casablanca and Chinatown

#s 65 to 61: including The Night of the Hunter, Hail the Conquering Hero and Peeping Tom

#s 60 to 56: saluting the merits of The Royal Tenenbaums, Pixote and A Star Is Born

#s 55 to 51, with Distant Voices, Still Lives, The Killer and The Railway Children

#s 50 to 45: clicky here for Breaking the Waves, Charlie Chan at the Olympics, Hannah and Her Sisters and more

Thanks for reading. More next week.

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